Unreal Tournament is the award winning 1st Person Shooter PC
game, that finally made its way to home console. It first
appeared on the PS2 in November 2000, and after a few delays, it
finally made its way to the Dreamcast, and the this version had a
certain feature the PS2 was unable to have, and that was online
play, and to make things even better, it is compatible with the
broadband adapter, so people with DSL modems, can play as well.

Graphics

Compared to the PS2 version, everything seems to be the same
during in game action. All the guns and arenas have the same
amounts of detail and look the exact same as they do in the PS2
version. Heck, Id even have to say the frame rate has
approved drastically in the Dreamcast version as well, in the
PS2, it got choppy in some major areas now that I think of it,
and the Dreamcast version is basically choppy-free. One thing
that is different from the PS2 version is the opening game menus.
For some damn reason the PS2 version had a sky blue background
with clouds, and it had a character select screen that made you
think you were playing Tekken. The Dreamcast version has a more
Mature Black background, plus it has one of the
coolest character select screens that Ive ever seen, which
is in the shape of a rotating pyramid. Plus the stuff they manage
to fit on all the players screen at once is unbelievable, like
gun ammo, life bar, and even chat messages.

Sound

There is no background music at all during game play, which is
actually a good thing, which adds on to the suspense of foes
sneaking up behind you. The sound effects are right on the button
here, with each gun having its own distinctive tone. The gun
shots, explosions, and death groans are the only thing you hear
during game play, but you can also hear players yell out,
You Suck and other threats at you as they frag you.
And reminiscent of playing a PC, you can hotkey your controller,
or Dreamcast Keyboard, and press a certain button to deliver
certain threats or commands like Cover Me and so on.

Game play

Gosh, the controls are way easier to understand in this
version. Unlike the PS2 version, there is true 100% customizable
controls here. Besides from picking from certain control schemes
like in the PS2 version, you can assign your controller button
any command you want. You can also assign controls for a mouse or
keyboard, if you have one plugged into the Dreamcast. The best
part of using the mouse and keyboard combo, is that it can
deliver the ultimate PC experience, without the $1500 cost of a
decent video card equipped PC. Plus, the PC + Mouse combo users
can easily outfrag the controller users in online play.

For game modes, your main single player mode here is the
missions, where you must beat a certain amount of computer
opponents with certain objectives like killing them a certain
amount of times within a time limit, or just outlast them all
together. The more missions you beat, the more characters and
arenas you unlock. Up to 4 players can join the fun on one
console in Deathmatch, Tag, Capture the Flag, and Team Deathmatch
play. There are about 10 different guns to find in the levels,
plus health and body armor power ups are here to add on to extra
health. Certain arenas can have up to 2 players, where others can
have up to 6, this is based mainly on the size of the arenas, and
in some, action can get quite crowded at times. And the online
play mode is last, where only one player from each Dreamcast can
play, but in levels that allow it, up to 8 players can play at
once, quite a feat, considering its other Dreamcast online rival,
Quake 3: Arena, only can have 4.

Replay Value

Youll be having a blast in single player trying to beat
all the missions to unlock all the levels and characters. Plus,
when you already got that all unlocked, and if you have the
Internet at home(which I assume you do since youre reading
this) you can go and play online for hours on end. The DSL
experience is great with no lag at all in most of your games.
Heck even using the DCs 56k modem you experience mostly low
lag times. I used it twice with my own paid, Internet connection,
and another time with a free ISP, Net Zero, and experienced low
lag times on both games, plus ping bars on game selection screens
let you know whos lagging. Its just too bad the game
doesnt store total kills and win/loss records, that would
be great.

-: Can get crowded at times, no win-loss records online, Some
people might not like theres no background music

The Final Ratings Rundown

Graphics: 9.0
Sound: 7.2
Game play: 9.2
Replay Value: 8.5

Overall: 8.4

Rounded to fit GameFAQs Score: 8

Comments

Way better than the PS2 version, youll be having the
ultimate PC experience playing this version. Id recommend
to buy the mouse and keyboard to have the best experience, and
better controls than online gamers using just a controller. So if
you happen to see this game for sale in your area, and unless you
own the PC version, make sure to pick up this version if you run
across it.